<p>One way to keep from feeling lost and alone in a new city is to connect with the people who share your favorite places, and modern technology is making that much easier. According to new Cornell research, the popular smartphone app Foursquare is making public spaces into shared communities.</p><p>"Places really do matter to people," said Lee Humphreys, assistant professor of communication, "but the real story is about connection with others. These technologies can be used to help people: If you have just moved to a new place, you can end up meeting people through the technology."</p><p>Humphreys and graduate student Tony Liao interviewed active users of Foursquare, which lets users tell a network of friends where they are. They found that the technology changes the way people experience a place, and makes public spaces into "parochial" spaces that feel like they belong to a special group. And that in turn encourages social connections. They reported their results in the Nov. 4 edition of the open-access journal First Monday.</p><p>The work is part of a growing interest in how technology is changing human behavior. The researchers acknowledge a debt to University of California, Davis, sociologist Lyn Lofland, who has suggested that in an urban setting teeming with strangers, we often form connections with "friendly strangers" whom we meet regularly in the places we like to visit.</p><p><a href="http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/01/checking-foursquare-can-make-new-friends">Keep reading...</a></p>